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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26128489">A Curse of Feathers and Mud</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity'>vegalocity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls, The Owl House (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Eda was Stan's Ex Wife, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Pre-Relationship, Stan in his early grifter years and Eda in her early curse era, The Vegas fiasco goes differently, un beta'd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:08:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,466</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26128489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Edalyn Clawthorne found out the truth behind her curse a little... earlier... and maybe it was that sense of betrayal, that discovery that Lilith had snuck into her room while she was asleep and ruined her life, that drove her to the human world. That despair, that isolation, the clear sense that she didn't belong here, maybe that's why she'd caught his eye; The human conman. They were in a town called Vegas, and it would certainly be safer for her to have someone who knew the human world on her side.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eda Clawthorne/Stan Pines</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>146</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Curse of Feathers and Mud</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So my friends and i were chatting about the whole 'Eda is Stan's ex wife' thing and I wondered how fucking insane things would get if they'd stayed together, and here we are. I'm not looking at BIG butterfly effect stuff yet, because that's too much ripple atm, but here's the 'how'.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Edalyn Clawthorne—or apparently as far as the human world was concerned, Marilyn Forrester—Was tired of the Boiling Isles and if she didn’t still need to keep Elixirs on hand, she’d never return, throw the folding door and the key over a ravine and resign herself to never seeing her homeland again.</p>
<p>She’d had her curse for a little over a decade at this point, but had only recently learned the truth about it. A lump formed in the back of her throat at the memory of her Sisters shouting. Eda’s bounty had just jumped another zero and Lilith had been ‘lucky’ to catch her while she was doing some self training on the Knee. And she… they’d gotten arguing and God-! She hadn’t even SEEN Lilith since she’d ran from the Coven Ceremony!</p>
<p>And THAT was her pitch to try and get her in?! 'Hey I cursed you when you were fourteen! Come join this system you hate and could never be happy under and serve this tyrant that brainwashed everyone in the goddamn land to practically worship him so he can fix what I did to you so I don’t have to do it and take responsibility for my actions! Everything will be fine!’ Lilith was lucky she’d still been recovering from a curse flare up and she’d just ran, else she might not have been able to control herself.</p>
<p>She’d ran back to her cabin—she’d been considering making a House Demon for the place, but it would need to be more than two rooms before the demon would have enough space to thrive, Eda was a lot of things, but a neglectful demon owner was not one of them—packed a bag with some human clothes and an armful of her stash of Elixirs and left for the human world. She’d needed to get away and the furthest she could think of was the human world.</p>
<p>Which was, of course, how she’d met Hal.</p>
<p>It was just some stupid scheme of hers that ended up blending in nicely with a scheme of his own, the two of them had caught on to eachothers game and played off of eachother until they had enough to split a hot meal.</p>
<p>She did her best to seem as though she knew exactly what she was doing, and thankfully Dollars weren’t too different in setup than Snails were. And she hadn’t been overly hungry her gut still turning and churning from the previous day’s discoveries, so she let Hal have most of the yellow salty sticks that came with the sandwich.</p>
<p>“So, what’s your name?” He’d asked, a mouth full of tomato blood—well, not REALLY tomato blood, it was too viscous and salty, but it was the closest approximation she’d had at the time—and brown eyes flickering to her ears—thankfully still covered by her mountain of orange hair.</p>
<p>“Edalyn.” She’d answered easily. It’s not like she was anybody in the Human world. Her name was only dangerous on the Boiling Isles.</p>
<p>“Marilyn…?” he fished, and Eda had been just about to correct him, before deciding against it. New world new her.</p>
<p>“Marilyn Blight.”</p>
<p>“Hal Forrester, nice to meet ya.”</p>
<p>So they’d ran some schemes together since it made it a little easier and eventually earned enough to hit the Casinos in town.</p>
<p>Maybe Hal was just lonely, in how quickly he’d taken to Eda, and maybe She was just desperate for the idea that she could actually do this, could actually run away to the human world and just drop back into the boiling isles when her Elixir runs dry. But eventually, high on adrenaline and the mutual sense of despair, the two of them found themselves in a drive by chapel. He didn’t have a ring for her, so He promised that that would be the first thing they got with their winnings once the stint in 'Vegas’ was over.</p>
<p>Of course when they left Vegas it wasn’t easily. The Goons for whatever powers controlled the human world in their screaming cars tearing across the road behind them, And for a moment, Eda was tempted to leave. To pull Owlbert from where she’d hidden him, take the Vegas winnings she had in her lap, and leave. Open the door while they were at this speed, say something snarky like 'I think we should see other people’ and jump out, her staff there to catch her.</p>
<p>But if she did… where the hell would she even go? The Owl Lady had a hundred thousand snail bounty on the Boiling Isles, and she didn’t want to return there unless either she HAD to, or she was READY to. And the last thing she wanted was the chance to somehow cross paths with her sister again. Eventually Belos would start actually sending agents out to find her, and knowing her Sister, Lilith would be the first to volunteer. And she was NOT ready for that yet.</p>
<p>“I have an idea, do NOT slow down.”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t dreamin’ of it, toots.” </p>
<p>Magic was harder here, this place didn’t have magic pouring from its very core, it was a magic vacuum. Everything Eda made took almost twice as much magic as it would back hom- Back on the Boiling Isles. She’d probably need to chug an elixir a day earlier than normal. Damn things… She used to only need to take them once a month, but now it’s come to a weekly basis. Maybe someday she’d have to guzzle the things like a morning apple blood.</p>
<p>Eda took a breath and drew a circle, the amber magic flashing only briefly before an Illusion was crafted, pulling away from them as the illusionary car stopped abruptly, the loud screech of tires against stone barely audible. The Goons behind them so startled as to not crash into their 'targets’ not a one noticed the trickery for what it was.</p>
<p>Hal, for his part, didn’t falter, she saw him startle slightly as he saw the illusion in the rearview mirror, his eyes widening and his hands scrambling over the steering wheel, but he kept his cool.</p>
<p>“What the hell was that?!” was the first thing out of his mouth when they’d crossed territories, into some place called 'Utah’.</p>
<p>Soooo maybe he didn’t take it like a CHAMP, but he did take it.</p>
<p>Well, Eda was in it now. She had a fake name that was a wanted woman, she was in a marriage of convenience—Eda had always had a torrid romantic history but even she knew that this wasn’t based in love, it was too soon, this was just mutual desperation for contact—with a human, and while she could return to Bonesbourough whenever she pleased, she found that, she still didn’t want to.</p>
<p>“Edalyn is my real name, with an 'E’. Edalyn Clawthorne. Back home they call me the Owl Lady, I’m one of the most powerful witches on the Boiling Isles.”</p>
<p>And Hal had let out a nervous chuckle, Owlbert hopping down from Eda’s staff and resting on his shoulder curiously. He took a deep breath and introduced himself as Stan Pines.</p>
<p>Though they both chose to keep the fake names for the next couple of states. A married couple looked better as an explanation than just a pair of wandering people who decided to stick together after all.</p>
<p>Eda had barely realized a year had passed until she was on her… tenth run back to Bonesbourough for her next supply of Elixir, Stan had come with her—so long as he swore to keep the hood of his jacket up over his head so people wouldn’t notice his ears—and ran her Human Curiosities stand for her as she did her business. And… okay, Stan was NOT a better salesman than she was, they were on pretty even footing, he’d simply grown up in the Human world while Eda had only been living there for a year. He knew more intimately how the curiosities worked so he knew how to better market them to others.</p>
<p>And HIS face wasn’t the one on the wanted posters that she’d seen periodically around the marketplace. So the Conformatorium’s Mooks left him alone.</p>
<p>When she came back, her newest crate of Elixir under her arm, over half of their stock had been cleared out, Stan humming a song about counting money to himself.</p>
<p>And you know… they weren’t in love. Not really. Maybe on some level he was trying to replace that brother she’d heard him mention in passing with her. And maybe on some level she was just trying to prove to herself that her own sister hadn’t ruined her life by making one of her own.</p>
<p>But they could maybe find a way to be happy. Just Maybe.</p>
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